> pipe and send it both to Real and Lame. Real can take input from
> /dev/dsp. Is there a virtual /dev/dsp that I can feed into and then
> route it back to Real? Sort of like a software wire from the line out
> back to the line in.....

At least in theory you could use ALSA-0.9x to do this. You'd need to run
RealEncoder under ALSA's OSS-emulation (and specifically emulation through
libaoss -> 'LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/libaoss.so realencoder'). Then you could
use's ALSA's pcm-plugins to make a link between ecasound's output and
realencoder's /dev/dsp input.

But the problem is that nobody but the ALSA developers seem to know how to
use the pcm-plugins, and they are too busy to write any documentation. But
sooner or later someone will have to find out. ;) You should ask about
this on alsa-users (or possibly also alsa-devel) mailing lists.

> Has anyone though of writing a leveling plugin? Especially to
> dynamically gain up low sections and songs.

Would be a good addition, but so far nobody has written one. Currently
-eca (the advanced compressor) is the best choice. It's very good for
level control, but fine-tuning the parameters is tricky.